


Banish to Bind

by Lady CAMo (LadeeCam0)



Category: The Babadook (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 23:31:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7734031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadeeCam0/pseuds/Lady%20CAMo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Babadook starts haunting a witch -- with disastrous results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Banish to Bind

Considering the ragged, ghostly apparition I’d catch of glimpse of every now and then, I wasn’t surprised when I heard the knocking at my door. Knock. Knock. Knock. That’s the sequence. Three knocks, then wait.

I answered the door, and found a book on the door step. A bad book. _Mister Babadook._

_Oh, no you don’t,_ I thought. _I know your story. You won’t take me._ Seizing the book and locking the door, I retreated into my meager studio apartment, grabbed my tablet, and opened the e-reader app.

I knew that _The Lesser Key of Solomon_ could be used for any spirit. And, it has Solomon’s Magical Triangle. The demon trap diagram! Taking note of the composition of the Triangle, I wrote a quick craft store shopping list. Yanking on my sweatshirt and helmet, I jumped on my bike and pedaled off. As I rode, I felt as if a strange presence was pursuing me. The Babadook. It couldn’t be seen, of course, but it was there nonetheless. Malevolent. Tenacious. Determined.

And it picked the wrong witch to fuck with!

At the craft store, I selected a somewhat thin paint brush and a jar of red paint for the lettering, spray cans of black and dark green for the rest of the Triangle, and a six-foot square canvass to paint it on. Once at home, it was to the Internet! First, I wanted more info on good ol’ Mister Babadook. It seemed that more you tried to push the bastard away, the stronger he’d become and the haunting might never end. So, there was little or no point in looking up banishing rituals. Maybe I could do a binding on him.

The next question was, when would be the best time for the binding? Some would say that the full moon is best for binding. Since I had to bind the Babadook in a way that would banish its influence over me, I felt the half moon would be the best time. Unfortunately, the half moon just passed. I’d have to wait almost a month before I could perform the ritual. That would feel a lot longer with the Babadook chasing me. But at the same time, it’ll give me the chance to gather the other stuff I need.

During the intervening weeks, the Babadook pursued me off and on. But rarely a day would go by without some kind of contact. Not only were the hauntings wearing me down, I wasn’t used to all this bike riding. I usually only rode for fun on the weekends, and now I’d been riding to work regularly because my transportation budget had to be used to get the necessary items for the ritual. True, it didn’t add up to all that much, but every penny I spent on the ritual’s necessities were pennies I couldn’t spend on transportation. My student loan payments ate too much of my income.

I revisited the message board for people who’d had been haunted by the Babadook, trying to get ideas for the binding. A lot of people had tried a lot of things, things that I wouldn’t have expected to work. With these tips and hints in mind, I finalized my ritual. I wrote none of it down, of course. Not yet. Don’t want the friendly neighborhood Babadook finding out how I planned on treating the chaotic evil sonofabitch.

Finally, it was time. As I expected, Mister fucking Babadook was a fan of the so-called witching hour, waiting till midnight to pay me a visit. But I’d been lying in wait. The circle had been cast and the Magical Triangle was already in the center of the room. Well, not the exact center of the room. Overall, my studio was a giant square. If you divided it into four smaller squares, then what would be my “living room” was one quadrant where this circle was cast and the trap set, with little folding tables serving as altars to the elements. I then launched into the most powerful banishing I could muster.

“Mister Babadook, you are not welcome in my home, save on my terms and my terms alone!” I declared, and the Babadook attacked with a fury I’d never experienced before.

The dumb fucker fell right into my trap. Literally. I had been standing on the Magical Triangle when the full fury of his attack came. He seized me, pulling me into his realm.

Idiot.

Never take a being behind your protective veil if that being knows your name. It works for humans just as it works for spirits. I knew his name and I was now on the other side of his protective barrier. His ass was mine!

I was in his house now, and I was surprised by how totally fucking cliché it was. Imagine your standard, dilapidated, horror movie mansion. That was this place. You’d think that would make him stronger, being on his turf, but I was using a compound binding. I was physically bound by cords to all four of my altars. I was facing north, with my left ankle bound to that altar as well as the west, and my right bound to east and south. Seals and sigils of protective dæmons were also on those altars, and there was a tarot card — the Tower, inverted — in my T-shirt pocket.

Grabbing the lovely Mister Babadook by his scrawny neck, I slammed him into the floor. He recovered and rushed me. Seizing him in both hands, I flung him clear across the room where he smacked into a wall. I heard wood snapping and brick crumbling. Mentally, I began reciting the Litany Against Fear from the book _Dune_.

_I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain._

I really hoped that last line was true, but if not and Mister Babadook the Rat-bastard remained, he’d be bound to me and he’d never be able to hurt me again.

Snarling his naked rage, he surged toward me a third time. I stood my ground so that I would, like the line in that song by Metal Church, “with open arms meet catastrophe.”

Into my embrace the Babadook crashed. Through two walls of his hellacious home we burst before he drove me to floor. I was the one in power, though. On impact, I rolled so that I was on top of him.

“Ba-ba- _dook!_ ” he raged with breath that stank far worse that I could ever have imagined. “ _Dook! DOOK!_ ”

“ _Suck my dick!_ ” I spat back into the faceless face of this monster, the monster that was the embodiment everything I’d ever done wrong. “I own you! You are bound to me. If I can’t be free of you, you won’t be free of me!” I stood, dragging this thing to his feet, than slammed him into the ceiling that was far higher than I could physically reach. I loved being able to do the impossible. I continued with the working of my ritual. “By the power of the Element of Air, hear my Words of Command. By the power of the Element of Water, may your influence over me ebb even as my control over you flows freely. By the power of the Element of Fire, let the Beacons of the Watchtowers be ever lit so that I may be wary of your presence. And by the power of the Element of Earth, may my binding weigh on you like the greatest of stones on your chest. So mote it fucking be, motherfucker!”

He howled and raged and surged and I had to try to mentally recite the Litany Against Fear again. But I wasn’t able to concentrate. I was working magick far beyond the veil, and though I was tethered by charmed cords to the real world, I was a solitary. There wasn’t any one within my circle but outside the Triangle to call my name and pull me back. There was a shattering sensation, as if the whole world were glass that suddenly exploded in every possible direction at once.

And just as suddenly I was back in the stillness of my apartment, standing on Solomon’s Magical Triangle in the center of my circle. The room looked completely undisturbed. In fact, the only things that looked different were that the candles had gone out and that the sun was rising. That, and in my right hand was a ragged scrap of coarse black cloth. I’d returned from beyond the veil with a physical piece of Mister Baba-fucking-dook.

Reciting a prayer, I untied the cords from my ankles but before I opened the circle, I approached the altar of the Earth. I’d set up a terrarium there, and there was a smaller Magical Triangle in that one, too. I was going to charm a small black rock to stand for the Babadook, which I planned on putting into a little cabin in the northern corner of the terrarium. Instead, I placed the folded scrap of cloth that I’d taken from his realm under the rock, which was put into the tiny cabin. Finishing the binding ritual, I opened the circle.

At every half moon, I cast a circle with my ankles tethered to my altars, the Magical Triangle of Solomon at the circle’s center, and I let the Babadook out of his prison for a time. He fought me fiercely for several of those rituals. But nearly a year after I bound him, he gave up fighting me. Rather, it’s like he’s become a sort of dangerous teacher. If I let my guard down, I know he’ll get free and haunt me something fierce again.

So if I’m going to be haunted, it will be on my terms and to my advantage.

 


End file.
